“Of course!”
Dr. Vera groaned, despite her usual attempt to maintain a professional/ unflappable radio persona. Maybe it was the fact that it was Friday night and she wanted to go home. She wanted to get away from people and their sexual problems—at least for the weekend—
“Anyway,” she said to move things along, “you think you’re a lesbian trapped in a man’s body?”
“Not at all—I’m secure in my lesbian-ness,” he said, making up his own terms.
A side of Dr. Vera wanted to say something sarcastic like, “Good for you, girlfriend!” Instead, she sighed and said, “So what is your problem then?”
“Oh,” Matt said, as if he’d forgotten, “…you see, the problem is that my boyfriend doesn’t want to be a lesbian.”
Dr. Vera hung up the phone and sighed. The theme music began to play in the background, and she glared at the producer as if to say, Aren’t you supposed to be screening these calls! However, he was too busy devouring his sandwich to notice her. “Cherished friends,” she began her usual sign-off message without enthusiasm, “this brings us to the conclusion of another wonderful show. This is Dr. Vera, reminding you that every day can be a great day if you choose to see it that way. Until next time, my friends…!”
As soon as she was off the air she groaned again, grabbed her huge handbag and walked out of the studio. The summer night was hot and humid. The studio was in midtown Manhattan; when Vera got outside, there were thousands of teenagers milling about on the sidewalk. A rock star named Pastranzo had done an interview at the station about four hours ago, when Vera was coming in to work. Awestruck teenage girls had screamed and passed out at the prospect of meeting their hero; ambulances and huge phalanxes of police officers had had to be called in to quell the hysteria. The worst of it seemed to be over, but even though Pastranzo had left the studio hours ago (through a side entrance) the teenagers refused to believe it. They stood their ground, baking in the summer heat with the crazed obstinacy of goats. Vera, who had had to fight her way through the crowd when coming into work, was now forced to do the same thing upon leaving.
All of a sudden, a squealing 14-year-old ran up to her with arms open wide, perhaps thinking that Vera was Pastranzo. As Vera did not have the patience to explain the difference between herself and a stringy-haired Italian man, she put some sense into the girl’s head the most efficient way she knew: with a firm backhand.
When she got to the curb, she hailed a cab and headed to Brooklyn. The cab smelled of vomit, curry and toe jam, so she opened the window and groaned again as she sat there brooding.
The two police officers exited the deli, each carrying a Styrofoam coffee cup in one hand and a paper bag of donuts in the other. Just as they reached their patrol car, the first officer bent his head to take a sip of his coffee and noticed the person standing across the street, in the shadows. The neighborhood always seemed as though it were in the middle of nowhere, even though the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges towered overhead. On the bridges, and the major thoroughfares that connected to these bridges, traffic zoomed 24 hours a day—except of course when there was a traffic jam. Either way, on the streets below the bridges, there was always a kind of loneliness. Most of the buildings were industrial warehouses or warehouses that had been converted to luxury condominiums. After dark, the neighborhood was usually deserted. This was why the police officer found the person in the shadows so conspicuous. The first officer got his partner’s attention, and then he gestured across the street. His partner stared quizzically in that direction before nodding. They left their coffee and donuts on top of the patrol car and began to walk across the street. Their hands automatically went to their guns. They did not grab them yet, but their fingers were within reach of their weapons. They made no attempt to rush; as they walked, they surveyed the person in the shadows. They took note of where his arms were—if his hands held a weapon. At last, when they were about to step onto the curb, the first officer called to the figure in the shadows:
“Is everything all right?”
Stacy stepped from the shadows, and they saw her. They surveyed her shapely figure—the way her cotton blouse was moist from the humidity and her sweat; they looked at the way her jeans hugged every succulent contour of her legs. She was like an angel standing there before them. Her hair was long and curly from the humidity; she tossed it over her left shoulder and the officers followed the motion as if it were something miraculous. She smiled, and they instinctively smiled. They forgot about their guns and whatever protocol they had learned in the police academy. There was something infectious about her smile, so that the more they looked at it, the more they smiled and felt overcome by an unnamable feeling that made them feel alive and intoxicated.
“Were you guys concerned about me?” Stacy flirted then, breaking the silence. She smiled wider, and the officers, to their amazement, found themselves giggling along, like two teenage morons. They were speechless in that “I wish I could say something cool, but I’m too overcome with awe” sort of way.
Stacy nodded at that moment, as if acknowledging that they were putty in her hands, and then she gestured toward the all-night deli: “Were you guys making a donut run?”
“Yeah, you know how it is,” the second officer said, still shy; but looking at her now, and seeing again how beautiful she was, he suddenly remembered the strangeness of her standing in the shadows. “Is everything all right?”
“Sure, I was waiting for a friend.”
“Your friend makes you wait here in the dark?” he said, trying to joke. He felt proud of himself; his partner seemed impressed, so they laughed too loudly at his joke.
It was then that a cab drove up and stopped in front of the deli. They all turned to look as Dr. Vera got out.
“There’s my friend,” Stacy said, smiling again. However, she made no attempt to get Dr. Vera’s attention, and the woman walked into the deli. Only after the cab had driven off did Stacy and the officers realize they had all stood staring at the scene. The officers looked at Stacy again, and giggled in the same nervous way as she smiled back at them. “Thanks for looking out for me, officers,” she said then.
“That’s our job,” the first officer said with a strange sense of self-importance.
“Can I ask you something?” she said then, lowering her voice, “I mean, between friends?”
“Sure. Anything,” the officers said in unison, enlivened by the prospect of being her friend.
“Did you ever shoot someone?” she said, gesturing to the first officer’s gun.
The officers looked at one another uneasily.
“That’s a strange question,” the second officer said.
“It’s a perfectly natural question,” Stacy responded with a shrug. “You guys carry guns for a reason.”
“We carry guns to keep the peace—not to shoot people.”
She laughed heartily, while they stood there with gloomy expressions on their faces. “You don’t need to justify it with me, officers,” she continued. “The first time you pull a gun on someone, everything changes. Even if, in your mind, you’re telling yourself that you’re keeping the peace, once you get that close to death—to killing someone—something changes within you. There is a sense of power there that’s difficult to turn back from….” She was looking at them with an odd gleam in her eyes; they shrunk away from it—felt cowed before it. They looked at one another uneasily again, but just then Dr. Vera emerged from the deli—
“I guess we’ll have to discuss it another time,” Stacy said, cutting off their conversation. “It’s been a pleasure, gentlemen,” she said, beginning to walk across the street. And then, winking at them mischievously over her shoulder, “Don’t hurt nobody.” Their faces were wretched as they watched her leave, but then their eyes navigated to her retreating buttocks, and they stood staring at the firm perfection of it. They were mesmerized now, forgetting the discomfort they had felt when she asked her strange questions. They forgot about the morbid glea
m in her eyes, and the fact that she had been standing alone in the shadows. For those few moments, they became merely men staring at a nice ass.
Dr. Vera had developed a (bad) habit of stopping by the deli after her shows, in order to pick up some junk food. That was especially true on Fridays. Tonight, she was so tired that she would have had the cab wait, in order to drive her the last two blocks, to her luxury condominium, but she had endured enough of the vomit/curry/toe jam stench as she could stand. Even though the blocks of this neighborhood were dark and deserted, there were usually a few policemen lurking around the deli, replenishing their junk food and coffee stocks. That was why this was a relatively safe neighborhood. As she began the trek home, she placed the ice cream and cookies she had bought in her huge handbag. She used the bag to carry her gym clothes, but it had been weeks since she had seen the inside of a gym. Now, as she plopped her ice cream and cookies on top of her gym clothes, she felt no guilt. She was going to eat junk food all weekend. She was going to order pizza and Chinese food, and vegetate in front of the TV, and nobody was going to take that away from her.
Still high from her junk food manifesto, she turned to the right and continued down the block. She noticed Stacy crossing the street, but thought nothing of it. Yes, she would take a long bath and watch the most melodramatic love story she could find on cable TV. It would all be perfect, and she would be at peace…at least, until she went back to work on Monday. These were her thoughts when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned to see Stacy’s smiling face:
“I’m a big fan of your show, Dr. Vera,” Stacy said as soon as Vera turned around.
“Thank you,” Vera responded before turning back around. She started walking quickly, hoping to get away, but Stacy matched her pace, her youth and grinning face seeming somehow inescapable. Unable to stand it anymore, Vera swung around and faced Stacy, who was walking by her side as though she had been invited home: “What do you want?” she said gruffly; but then, seeing Stacy’s grinning, awestruck face, she sighed and reverted to her radio persona: “How may I help you today?”
Stacy squealed with delight, because that was the phrase Dr. Vera used to greet all the guests/patients on her radio show. Stacy was still beaming, like some kind of star-struck imbecile.
“How may I help you?” Vera said again, to bring Stacy from her trance. This time, Stacy nodded excitedly, saying:
“I’m the one who is here to help you, Vera. May I call you Vera?” she said, smiling again.
“Sure—fine,” she said with a certain amount of annoyance. She started walking again—calmly this time, but nonetheless with the hope of getting away from the woman. “How do you intend to help me?” she said with the same twinge of annoyance in her voice.
“There’s something in my car I want you to see.”
“Something’s in your car?” she said, fighting to understand. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, that’s my quandary. If I tell you what it is, you may not want to come; at the same time, you may not want to come unless you know what it is. …Will you come with me, no questions asked?”
“No,” Vera said frankly.
“I understand,” Stacy said, bowing her head thoughtfully. At last, she looked up and sighed, saying: “That leaves me no choice.”
Stacy’s tone and body language disturbed Vera, so that she was a little breathless as she said, “What do you mean?”
Stacy hiked up her blouse then, and pulled out a .22. Vera froze, but Stacy gripped her upper arm with her free hand and pulled her along, saying, “I need you to come with me, Vera.”
Vera stumbled along, dazed.
Stacy continued: “As I tried telling you before, I need you, Vera. However, you need me as well—you just don’t know it yet.”
Stacy made Vera take a right turn, away from her condominium. After walking half a block, Vera began to regain her composure; her mind worked frantically.
“What’s this all about?” she said, her voice hoarse.
“I need you to come and see what’s in my car,” Stacy said plainly.
Vera tried to think up everything she knew on escaping an abductor; for a moment, she thought about hitting the woman with her huge handbag. She shook her head. “Look,” Vera tried to reason with her, “there is no need for a gun—the main thing is that we talk.”
“I’m not one of your patients, Vera,” Stacy said with a calm chuckle, “—but I’ll talk if you want…as long as you come to my car.”
Stacy’s grip was firm and commanding; their pace was not exactly brisk, but in her dazed state, Vera found herself stumbling along. Her limbs felt like rubber. Her stomach felt queasy, so that she worried about throwing up over the designer outfit François had picked for her.
Stacy tugged at her arm again—she had been about to walk into a street lamp. Vera forced her mind to be still: she had to reason her way out of this!
“Hey,” she began, trying to forge some kind of connection with her abductor, “you didn’t tell me what your name is.”
“My name is Stacy.”
“Okay, Stacy,” she began with new hope. “What’s so important about your car?” As she asked the question, she suddenly remembered that people who got into a car with an abductor were more likely to be killed… or did that just apply to men abducting women. “What do you want from me?” she said at last.
“I guess that’s a fair question,” Stacy said with a shrug of her shoulders. “I suppose it can’t hurt now, as we know where we stand.” As she said this last part, she waved the gun ostentatiously in the air, like one would a diamond ring. There was a nonchalant expression on her face now as she began, “The fact of the matter is, Vera, that I killed my boyfriend tonight.”
Vera stopped and stared at Stacy—to see if this was some kind of sick joke—but there was something in Stacy’s eyes that told Vera she was looking at a murderer. She quivered; Stacy smiled, then tugged at her arm again, so they could continue walking. Vera felt dazed and wretched again.
“Before you get excited,” Stacy continued after a while, “it’s not what you think.”
Vera had to take a deep breath before she could talk. “…It doesn’t matter what I think,” she started. “The important question is, what do you think it is?”
Stacy squealed with delight again. “Good, good—you have to keep the lunatic talking about herself. And you know what? I will keep talking—we have about fifteen minutes to wait anyway.”
“Fifteen minutes until what?”
“Come on,” she said, pulling Vera’s arm again. “That’s the big surprise… I’ve thought about it for a while now, Vera: if I tell you what has happened, you won’t believe me anyway. The only way is for you to see for yourself.”
“Okay,” Vera forced herself to speak. “So, why did you kill your boyfriend?”
“I killed him so you would be able to see.”
“See what?”
“The true nature of life and death.”
Vera took another deep breath. “Why is it important to you that I see that?”
Stacy snickered. “You’re thinking I’m some kind of celebrity stalker: that I’ve lost sight of reality and think a voice I hear over the radio is the center of my life. That’s hardly the case, Vera. I actually think you’re a spoiled, condescending bitch.”
“So you’re here to take revenge on me?”
Stacy laughed again. “Nah. Like I said, I’m here because I need you, Vera—and because you need me: mutual need.”
“Why do I need you?” she said, still struggling to understand.
“You will know that for yourself, once you see what’s in my car. Needs don’t require justifications and explanations: that’s the great thing about them. If you’re hungry, you don’t have to come up with a million reasons why you’re hungry. You just have to say ‘I’m hungry’ and you go and get something to eat. In the same way, I could give you a million reasons why you should come with me, or what I need from you, but onc
e you see the nature of our mutual need, you’ll realize all those reasons are a waste of time. My car is right at the end of the block,” she concluded.
“Where are you going to drive me?” Vera said uneasily.
“I’m not going to drive you anywhere, Vera. We’re going to sit in my car for”—she looked at her watch—“another thirteen minutes, and then, if you wish, you can go home.”
Vera frowned. “We’re just going to sit in your car?”
“That’s right. We’re going to sit there, and you’re going to see something that will change the way you think of yourself as a human being.”
There was something ridiculous about the proposition, and Vera, despite everything, could not suppress her smile. Stacy smiled as well.
“Laugh if you wish, Vera. Twelve minutes from now, you’ll thank me.”
Vera stared at her for a while—as if some clue in her face would reveal everything to be an elaborate joke: one of those celebrity hidden camera shows, perhaps, where a celebrity was made to endure an embarrassing or frightening situation before the host came out and revealed that it was all a joke…but the streets were bare and dark. They had walked several blocks so far: unless there were cameras on every block, then Vera really was being abducted by a madwoman. A new sense of panic began to rise within her. She looked at Stacy anxiously: “…Did you really say you killed your boyfriend tonight?” She asked the question as if she suspected that she had misheard Stacy—as if this entire situation could be explained by some misunderstanding, but:
“Yeah, I killed him,” she said simply. “I killed him so you could see that you need me.”
Vera suddenly felt sick. She looked at Stacy pleadingly: “You keep saying that I need you, but it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t know you—I don’t need you. And you don’t need me. We’re strangers to one another.”
“You’re the center of everything, Vera,” Stacy countered. “I need you to be the objective observer in all this—the skeptic.”
“So, this is all some kind of experiment?”
How to Kill Your Boyfriend (in 10 Easy Steps) Page 2
